The field of physics education focuses, among other things, on questions surrounding adolescents’ critical and reflective use of digital media. One area of research focuses on how adolescents engage with information on social media, as these platforms currently play a central role in how they access information. However, fake news and misinformation are also increasingly widespread on social media. This raises the important question of how adolescents evaluate the credibility of scientific content on such platforms.
In the article “Upper Secondary School Students’ Credibility Assessment of Scientific Content on Instagram,” published in the Journal of Baltic Science Education, Angelika Bernsteiner and Claudia Haagen-Schützenhöfer investigate how upper secondary school students assess scientific content on Instagram. The study examines which criteria adolescents use to evaluate credibility and identifies the challenges they encounter in this process. Based on the findings, valuable implications are derived for science education and for supporting adolescents in dealing with scientific information on social media.
The open access article can be found here: https://www.scientiasocialis.lt/jbse/?q=node/1555